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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29280915">The Holiday Do</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/pseuds/aurilly'>aurilly</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>James Bond (Craig movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Getting Together, Q is not as clever as he thinks he is</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 04:42:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,858</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29280915</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/pseuds/aurilly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's time for the MI-6 holiday party! </p><p>Moneypenny stops by to make sure that Q doesn't spend the night working...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eve Moneypenny/Q</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Chocolate Box - Round 6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Holiday Do</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/gifts">Rubynye</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"How do you see in here? It's black as pitch."</p><p>Q would recognize Eve's voice anywhere, with its unique balance between jolly and sultry. </p><p>He has to have been hunched over the iPhone he's been reconfiguring for some time, because his back creaks when he looks up. But even if she hadn't said anything, he'd still recognize her silhouette and gait anywhere. Even in the shadowy basement, her slim figure sauntering towards him is unmistakable. </p><p>"I have the lamp on here, as you can see," he says, trying to sound tetchy, and hoping that his voice is loud enough to cover the suddenly insistent beating of his heart. </p><p>She comes close enough now to be seen more clearly, curls bobbing. She splays her hands on the front of his desk and leans over to see what he's working on. "That can't possibly be so pressing."</p><p>"Double-oh three is setting out for Libya tomorrow. You know how he gets about his equipment. Worse than Bond."</p><p>"Double-oh three is likely not going anywhere at all tomorrow."</p><p>"I don't follow. Has his mission been cancelled?" Q swivels towards his monitor and keyboard in order to check the latest instructions.</p><p>"No, not exactly. But if I have done my job correctly, Double-Oh Three will have too painful of a hangover to go to Libya tomorrow."</p><p>"Aren't they trained not to succumb to hangovers? I heard that shot contests are part of the training."</p><p>"They are, and I agree, the hangover alone should not be enough to stop him. However, if I have both done my job correctly <i>and</i> have luck on my side, he will wake in Susan's bed. A lovely bed, and a lovely girl. Too lovely to leave so soon."</p><p>"Who?"</p><p>"Susan from accounting. You've met her," Eve said in response to Q's baffled mugging expression. "She's the one who always corrects your sloppily-documented expense reports for you. Blonde? Nose piercing?"</p><p>"Oh, her. Yes, she's very sweet."</p><p>"Yes, she is. Which is part of why Double-oh Three's been mad about her for ages. She only needs a little push that I have high hopes tonight will provide."</p><p>"Ah," Q says, rubbing his forehead. "What about tonight makes it so likely to happen?"</p><p>Eve searches around the desk. When she spots some blueprints, she rolls them up and hits him gently on the head with it. "Tonight's the MI-6 Christmas Do. You know this."</p><p>"I'd completely forgotten," Q half-lies. He <i>did</i> know about the party, but was so thrown by Eve's sudden visit and by this matchmaking story that it temporarily flew out of his head.</p><p>"More like you haven't read any of the seventeen emails I've sent about it. I'm insulted that my name appearing in your inbox elicits such a lack of urgency. What if I'd been emailing you about something life or death?"</p><p>She's right that they are marked as unread, but what Eve perhaps doesn't know is that Q set all of his emails set to appear permanently unread. She doesn't need to know that he's read all of those emails three times. She doesn't need to know that each of those seventeen times, when the email appeared at the top of his inbox, the blood in his ears throbbed a bit at the sight of her name. Nor does she need to know the disappointment he felt when he realized the emails were sent to the entirety of MI-6, and not just to him. </p><p>"What about Libya?" he asks. "Surely your matchmaking is not more important than the mission."</p><p>"It's a deep cover mission. Double-oh three can just as easily slip into it next Friday. There will be another opportunity. I should know. I wrote the assignment brief. All of which means that you no longer have an excuse."</p><p>"You don't actually think I'm attending, do you?"</p><p>"Of course I do. Because you will."</p><p>"I've nothing to wear. Isn't it a fancy-dress party?"</p><p>"So you <i>did</i> read the emails!"</p><p>Q frowns at having been caught out. "I may have heard people talking about it in the lunchroom," he said.</p><p>"Well, either way, I brought a costume for you." She points at the garment bag she must have set down on a nearby desk just before she came more clearly into his view. "I knew you'd try to get out of this, so I came prepared."</p><p>Q gets up and opens it. They are his clothes, from his closet. A tuxedo that he last wore to a second-cousin's bachelor party years ago. The tag from the dry cleaners down the street from his apartment is still pinned to the sleeve.</p><p>"How did you get this? My apartment has fifteen layers of cryto-secur—"</p><p>"I know. We <i>all</i> know about your high-tech set-up. You never shut up about it. Luckily, some of your underlings are even smarter than you. And all of them adore me. It's been something of a department game, seeing who could break through your famed cryto-security for me." </p><p>Q should be more surprised, but he isn't. Eve's popularity amongst his direct reports has long been a source of agitation for him, both professionally and otherwise. She's down in this Q branch basement lair rather a lot. Always with some official-sounding pretense, but Q can never shake the feeling that it's more than that. He's always idly (more than idly, honestly) wondered who it is she comes to see. Is it Youssef, whose statuesque handsomeness first got him considered for a field agent position before his hacking skills proved even more fearsome? Is it Trevor, the perfectly posh new recruit whose massive inheritance allows him to buy after-work rounds for the team at the Beaufort House over in Chelsea after work. Or is it someone less obvious who has caught her fancy? Q sometimes looks up from his work to try to guess, all while feeling a sad gulch in his stomach. </p><p>"Who was it, in the end?" he asks.</p><p>"And let you exact your retribution? I'll never tell. Now, chop chop." With an elegant motion, she swings herself up to sit on his desk, and crosses her legs.</p><p>Q reluctantly does as she bids. He always does. Everyone always does. Even M, most of the time. </p><p>"I'll pop off to the loos then," he says, taking the costume in his arms.</p><p>"And let you escape through that door you think I don't know about? Absolutely not. You can change right here. Everyone's gone and I promise not to look." </p><p>To emphasize her point, she swivels around on the smooth wooden desk and pretends to study his notes for the laptop. </p><p>Q unbuttons his cardigan with fingers that are suddenly stiffer and more awkward than when he'd been performing much more intricate disassembly minutes ago. </p><p>To break the silence that isn't actually awkward, even though he feels that it should be, he asks, "Shouldn't you already be there? Since you organized, I mean." (What he really means to ask is why she cares so much about his attendance to have sought him out personally. Q branch's new digs are neither close to M's office nor to tonight's venue.)</p><p>"In my performance report last month, Mallory suggested I work on delegating. So that's what I've done for all the day-of responsibilities. Tonight, I intend to enjoy myself."</p><p>"I'm sure you would find more enjoyment there than here, with me, in this dank basement," he says, with more blunt honesty than he truly intended, but it slips out, unbidden, the question too all-encompassing as he fastens the last ties of his costume. </p><p>(The costume is a little looser than he remembers; perhaps Eve has been correct, and he really hasn't been eating enough since starting this job.)</p><p>"Well, we won't be in this dank basement for very much longer, will we? And you didn't expect me to have much fun at a work affair without my best work mate, did you?"</p><p>"I… What?" Q asks, surprised out of his usual arch smoothness. </p><p>"Have you finished dressing yet? This is taking an age."</p><p>"Yes, I've finished." But as she hops off the desk again, he asks again, "What do you mean, your best work mate?" </p><p>"Do you think I have another one? Who would it be?" </p><p>Q hasn't really thought about it. He's spent too much time worrying about who it is she might feel more for. "I suppose Tanner."</p><p>She grimaces. "He's lovely, but other than Bond, you're the only one around here who can take my sense of humour. And unlike Bond, I actually like you." She comes close and begins feeling along the length of his lapels. "You look smashing, darling."</p><p>Q's ears do that annoying throbbing thing again at the endearment, as well as at the compliment. She must call everyone that. </p><p>"It's supposed to be 'fancy dress', but this just seems 'dressed-up'. What am I meant to be?"</p><p>"My date, of course."</p><p>For the first time, Q takes in what she's wearing under her long overcoat. It looks like an evening dress, made of glittering blue satin that falls to her ankles. Diamonds twinkle in her ears and he thinks he can see a hint of a something similar beneath her expertly tied scarf. Neither the earrings<br/>
nor the necklace sparkle as brightly as her eyes as she looks up at him.</p><p>He thinks he sees something almost vulnerable behind that sparkle. </p><p>And that's when he gets it. That perhaps this was never about Youssef or Trevor. Or even…</p><p>"Are you setting up Double-oh Three with Susan from accounting as a means of delaying his trip to Libya, thereby freeing <i>me</i> to not have to show up for work tomorrow?"</p><p>"Knew you'd catch on eventually. They wouldn't have hired an absolute dolt," she teases.</p><p>"I have an IQ that's technically beyond the established charts, I'll have you know."</p><p>"Not when it comes to this."</p><p>He still feels like he's pressing his luck when he reaches for her hand, picking it up and bringing it to his lips. </p><p>"Is this all right?" he asks, after he's kissed it.</p><p>"Yes, but this would be better," she says, just before she leans in and kisses him full on his chapped lips. She slowly backs him up against the desk, but he gets his own back by hoisting himself to sit on the edge, spreading his legs wide and trapping her between his thighs. His ankles cross around behind her calves and he leans in forward to take more.</p><p>"Hm," she says when they finally break for air.</p><p>"Better than you expected?" he asks. "I get that a lot."</p><p>"No, you kiss exactly as I imagined. I just have a very good imagination. Shall we, ahem, go?"</p><p>"To the party?"</p><p>"God, no," she says with a cute twitch of her nose and another kiss. "To dinner."</p><p>"Where did you have in mind?" he asks, enjoying the feel of her in his arms, the feel of her cold hands on his face.</p><p>"I've been hearing a lot about Akoko, over in Fitzrovia. But it's impossible to get a reservation."</p><p>"Not for me."</p><p>She grins. "That's what I was hoping."</p>
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